It’s not been a great decade. The struggles and strains have manifested themselves in ways I never imagined. Perhaps I would feel better about life if I got a neck-lift My neck is showing a lot of age and I can’t keep wear turtlenecks in August – it just looks silly. I was doing a signing last week at a bookstore and noticed a book I used to read as a kid entitled The Saggy Baggy Elephant. I could relate. I’m still working on the elephant part, but the saggy baggy I’ve got down. I don’t necessarily think that sublime physical perfection is the only way to get past the velvet ropes at Club Happy, but, well let’s just start with the neck and see what happens. I suppose in a way many of us are exhausting ourselves in a narcissistic orgy of bingeing, purging, and free consultations, all in the hope that Father Time will cut us the same deal that Dick Clark has. I know it’s not right, but models and movie stars are the aesthetic benchmarks against which we measure ourselves, regardless of how unattainable their beauty may be without access to personal trainers, extensive cosmetic surgery, and pharmaceutical speedballs. That’s why people go to plastic surgeons asking for Angelina Jolie’s lips or Brad Pitt’s eyes. Ask many little girls what they want to be when they grow up. Chances are they won’t say president or astronaut or doctor. Chances are they’ll say “Supermodel.” I think I wanted to be a model when I was younger. Teacher was on the list too, but it was way down on the list. I was a dope. I was eight and couldn’t know the closest I’d ever come to modeling was doing a print ad for non-stick pan-wear and panty-shields. And by the way, isn’t it about time we passed an absolute edict forbidding those Victoria Secret women from uttering the words “Modeling is hard work.” Sadly, so much is wrapped up in how we look. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is. Women’s magazine don’t help much. A glance through one of those tony tomes and you’re indoctrinated into a no-win, parallel universe populated by spindly, overpaid nineteen-year olds in thousand dollar frocks, hair and makeup tips so intricate they would confound Oppenheimer, and diets that make the rations at a Sudan refugee camp look like the Viennese table at the late Pavarotti’s wedding. And the biggest irony is, in every single one of these magazines, there are at least five articles about how important it is to like yourself just the way you are. Be that as it may, I choose not to go gently into that saggy night. In addition to a neck-lift I might even get a little liposuction because uh, well?let’s just say my belly button’s not as close to my spine as it used to be.
